This just goes to show you, that God chooses his strongest soldiers to send a message to the world.  We all can take a part of Zach Sobiech life and apply it to our own.  This video is such an inspiration to me and how he choose to live his life to fullest and not let his illness hold him back.  I feel terrible for the things that I have complained about, to see that life is really great.  It is really all up to us to view our lives through another looking glass, to create our future.

I hope this video touched you as much as it has touched me.

His life:
 



One of his songs:
 

Why Society Needs Strong Families

A house in want of order

We hear it all the time: “The family is the basic unity of society.” But do we, as a society, really think about what that means? The bonds between husband and wife, parents and children, are so firmly planted in history and experience that we often take them for granted — until, as happens from time to time, those bonds break down. As a solid body of research shows, there is no replacement for the way this institution creates and develops human relationships. Family is no longer, nor ever has been, something that is simply “granted.” As anyone who has tried it knows, raising a family and sustaining a marriage are challenging things to do. However, at stake is not only the health of the individual family but also the prosperity and future of society.

Social scientists agree that not all is well with family and marriage. A report on a recent national survey captured the mood: “America’s parents are anxious.”[2] And as the report shows, anxiety about family decline taps into “a larger perception that our communities are less safe, our work ethic has slipped, and American religious and spiritual life has ebbed.”[3]

The institutions of family and marriage are wearing down. Marriage rates continue to decline[4]: the average couple marrying today has a 40-50 percent chance of divorce or separation.[5] Cohabitation is increasingly commonplace[6] and when children are involved results in more break-ups than marriage.[7] Around 41 percent of all births take place outside of marriage[8] and for the first time more than half of births to women under 30 occur outside marriage.[9] The institutions that are meant to provide security have become a source of insecurity. As many as 44 percent of those in the millennial age group agree that marriage is becoming “obsolete.”[10]

But what does this portend? The health of marriage also has economic implications. According to Pew Research, “married adults have made greater economic gains over the past four decades than unmarried adults.”[11] In addition, children in single-parent households are more likely to live in poverty.[12] But children in two-parent families around the world tend to have better educational outcomes than those living with only one parent or without a parent.[13] Of course not all families are alike, and it takes mutual commitment and community support for even the best of them to work.

Marriage and children, now and in the future

While society is blessed by the contributions of virtuous citizens from all walks of life, research indicates that married people tend to be happier, healthier, and more productive, and they provide the best environment for raising children.[14] Children raised by their own married biological parents experience less poverty, less drug and alcohol use and less crime and delinquency; they gain more education; they are more likely to marry; and they have better mental health compared with children from other family arrangements.[15]

The presence of children in families and societies summons responsibility for their care, encourages productivity, creates an orientation toward the future and pulls individuals outside of their own needs. Though not every couple has children, whether by choice or by circumstance, children remind us all that human flourishing goes much deeper than the happiness of the present. Fortunately, in the United States most children born to married couples will grow up in an intact family.[16] What one spiritual leader said years ago still holds true today: the greatest work we will ever do is within the walls of our home.[17]

But what happens when children no longer become a normal part of life’s plans and patterns? The answer is not just smaller families, but smaller populations. Birth rates have been falling in many places around the world, including the United States. Declining birth rates are making it hard for many Asian and European countries, for example, to replace one generation with another. A report called “The Rise of Post-Familialism” — a condition in which "the family no longer serves as the central organizing feature of society” — describes “a huge population” of people around the world “who have no offspring.” Choosing not to have children, these people “may be less focused on those things necessary to assure a better future for the next generation.”[18] The state of the family figures into a whole spectrum of societal problems, including demographic, economic and sociological.

Stable families as cooperative unions

One might think that family matters are entirely personal, detached from the surrounding society. Does one person’s family or marriage really affect anyone else’s? The answer is a resounding yes. None of us lives in isolation. A report on the state of marriage in America put it this way: “Marriage is not merely a private arrangement; it is also a complex social institution. Marriage fosters small cooperative unions — also known as stable families — that enable children to thrive, shore up communities, and help family members to succeed during good times and to weather the bad times.”[19]

David Brooks of the New York Times goes further, explaining how maximizing personal freedom does not necessarily give people what they want. Rather, he argues, individuals are better served “when they are enshrouded in commitments that transcend personal choice — commitments to family, God, craft and country.”[20]

None of us is born a mere individual. We come to this world with a network of pre-existing relationships, bonds and obligations, both familial and civil. Eighteenth-century statesman Edmund Burke affirmed that society acts as “a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born."[21] As Orthodox rabbi Meir Soloveichik sees it, family works in much the same way: “Marriage is about continuity and transmission.”[22] The hard, humble work of building and strengthening family relationships is worth undertaking, not only for ourselves but also for the common good.

If these trends remain unaltered …

If current trends continue, what will the family look like 10, 20 years down the road? What kind of future awaits our children, our young people, our neighborhoods and civic relationships? These are serious problems that need to be addressed — not when crisis boils over completely, but now. Projections are notoriously difficult for social scientists to make. The future is not set in stone; society falls into slumps and climbs back out of them. However, given the current trajectory the future looks pretty bleak for many American children.

Demographer Joel Kotkin sings a similarly somber tune: “It’s time for us to consider what an aging, increasingly child-free population, growing more slowly, would mean here. As younger Americans individually eschew families of their own, they are contributing to the ever-growing imbalance between older retirees—basically their parents—and working-age Americans … creating a culture marked by hyper-individualism and dependence on the state as the family unit erodes.”[23] Calling family “truly indispensable,” Kotkin says that strengthening it is “a case we need to make as a society, rather than counting on nature to take its course.”[24]

This discussion on family is much more than a numerical exercise; it’s about the lives and hopes of real people. These societal drifts need not be our destiny. Yet, as one commentator recently noted, such pervasive trends “can only be reversed by the slow accumulation of individual choices, which is how all social and cultural recoveries are ultimately made.”[25]

Great story of conversion to the LDS church

“I laughed hysterically the entire show,” Morong said. “I thought, ‘Wow, these people are crazy. They must be brainwashed."

It was underneath the lights of Broadway on Sept. 25, 2011, that Boston resident Liza Morong’s life changed forever. She just didn’t know it then.

The 21-year-old musical theater major was sitting in the Eugene O’Neill Theatre in New York City, watching “The Book of Mormon" musical.

Written by the creators of “South Park,” the edgy, irreverent but enormously popular musical is about two Mormon missionaries who try to share the Book of Mormon with the natives of northern Uganda.


“I laughed hysterically the entire show,” Morong said. “I thought, ‘Wow, these people are crazy. They must be brainwashed.’”

With her interest piqued, Morong, who was raised Congregationalist, found herself on the official website of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Mormon.org, simply to continue her amusement with this seemingly bizarre faith.

After her questions, Elder Boardman invited her to chat again. Her initial reaction was a resounding no. “But then I thought, ‘You know, I do want to chat again.’ I caught myself by surprise,” she said. .

When she found a link for a live chat with missionaries, Morong felt like she had hit the jackpot. But what she found wasn’t what she expected.

It was when she started chatting with Elder Trevor Boardman, a missionary in the referral center at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, that everything changed.

“I thought, ‘These clowns are in for a treat with me,’ ” Morong said. “But (Elder Boardman) was so incredibly nice. I could not be mean to him.”

It was his genuine kindness, not his message, that caught Morong off guard.

Morong was able to ask sincere questions she had since attending the musical. After her questions, Elder Boardman invited her to chat again.

Her initial reaction was a resounding no.

“But then I thought, ‘You know, I do want to chat again.’ I caught myself by surprise,” she said.

The missionaries added Morong on Facebook and began teaching her the lessons through Facebook chat near the end of October. Not too long after this, Elder Boardman asked if he could send a copy of the Book of Mormon to her.

“'Here it comes,’ I thought,” Morong said.

But she agreed.

Elder Boardman sent her a hardback copy of the Book of Mormon. His testimony was written on the back cover, and with it was a reference to a passage from the book of Moroni inviting Morong to ponder and pray about the things she read.

On Nov. 3, 2011, Morong accepted the challenge and began to pray about the things the missionaries were teaching her, including the Book of Mormon. She started noticing a different kind of happiness come into her life, and an ability to make important changes.

Morong said the first time she recognized the feelings of the Spirit was after her first Skype lesson with the elders on Nov. 11.

“I was riding my bike to class one morning through some side streets in an older neighborhood in Boston. I remember the light was just passing through the branches of the trees. I felt this peace that I have never felt before. I thought to myself, ‘That just came from God.’”

Though she said it was a moment that lasted only for a few seconds, it was one that stayed with her.

Shortly after, Morong began attending a local singles ward. The first Sunday she went, she fortuitously sat behind two sister missionaries serving in the ward. Shortly after, Morong began meeting with the sisters, who taught her on campus at Suffolk University in Boston, where she is currently enrolled.
It was in a lesson with the sisters on Dec. 1, 2011, when Morong decided to be baptized. As the three of them sat around the table, Morong said she felt the Spirit strongly and knew that what she had learned was true.

“I looked at the sisters. They told me the next step was baptism, and I realized I wanted to do that," she said. "Suddenly all three of us were crying hysterically at my dining room table."

Morong's baptismal date was set for late December in Mapleton, Utah. Her one request — for Elder Boardman to baptize her.

Elder Boardman has muscular dystrophy, which made it a challenge for him to physically baptize Morong.

But on Dec. 31, 2011, three people dressed in white stood in a baptismal font in waist-high water. Elder Boardman offered the prayer, and with some help from his companion, Elder Ahlstrom, the two missionaries baptized their online investigator.

“If you believe, the Lord will reveal it. And you'll know it's all true — you'll just feel it,”. - Book of Mormon Broadway Musical

While her family doesn’t understand why she has made the choice to join the LDS Church, their relationship is still strong. Morong said she knows this is because the gospel blesses families.
“My mom will sometimes say, ‘I can’t believe I brought you to that show. None of this would have happened.’ I tell her that it still would have, just in a different way,” Morong said.

And while she is an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, when she returns home to Maine where she grew up, she attends church with her mom as well as her LDS congregation.

“I am a member of Christ’s true church, but the church I grew up in is still part of me,” she said.

While the musical has been called irreverent and crude, some of the lyrics still have special, sentimental value to Morong. The words, “If you believe, the Lord will reveal it. And you'll know it's all true — you'll just feel it,” from the show’s song “I Believe,” still resonate with Morong because she feels that’s what happened for her.

“My life has changed. I am so much happier,” Morong said. “It’s a happiness that stays with me if I make the right choices. I was an optimist anyway, but (the gospel) has made me even more optimistic.”

This fall, Morong, who is currently a sophomore, will begin classes at the University of Utah. She will declare a double major in musical theater and communication.

She hopes her dream will lead her right back to where she began — the lights of Broadway

Source: Deseret News